Campaign Mastery

A friend I once gamed with was awesome at celebrating gaming. He made sessions into special events. He had props. He talked about games in a special way, like a sports fan does about when their team won the championship that year. He celebrated the details and told stories about special session moments. It was […]

Architecture is often an afterthought in campaigns, so it under performs as a GM tool. I’ve set about to fix that for my Riddleport campaign. Here are a few of the ways I’m using building architecture to enhance the campaign, and I describe my thought processes so you can do the same for yours. The […]

Bryan Howard recently submitted this tip to Roleplaying Tips: Former PCs as NPCs The best and easiest way to have great NPCs is to inject your old characters. The fighter who settled down and opened a tavern, school or guild. The cleric who built his own temple. Another way is to use former player characters […]

“Show, don’t tell is an admonition to fiction writers to write in a manner that allows the reader to experience the story through a character’s action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the narrator’s exposition, summarization, and description.” – Wikipedia Great advice for writers. And the third dimension – interactivity – makes this […]

You can win a copy of the hardcover Player’s Handbook 3 for D&D 4E thanks to Gator Games. How to enter Entering is easy and you have two options: Option 1. Leave a comment below telling us you’d like to enter the contest. Option 2. Follow @gatorgames and @johnnfour on Twitter and send us both […]

How to undo major events in your campaign without destroying it. The worst case scenario in my games has to be erasing gameplay, rewinding and replaying that part of the game again. I’ve only done that several times and it’s always felt horrible. A logic flaw pops up, or an inconsistency conflicts with what has […]

In 2008 I implemented the Getting Things Done system (GTD) for organizing my RPG campaign’s emails, ideas and to do items. It worked so well that I now use it for every campaign, and I think you should consider it as well. Here is my version of GTD for managing and organizing my campaign. Gather […]

A guest post by Bobby.Catdragon An orphan, the character only knows his powers came from somewhere. However, coincidental circumstances seem to point to something demonic or diabolical. Should the character find out why? And what happens when he does discover the truth? One day the character’s father disappears. The next day the character’s powers manifest […]

You can win a copy of the new hardcover Martial Power 2 for D&D 4E thanks to Gator Games. How to enter Entering is easy and you have two options: Option 1. Leave a comment below telling us you’d like to enter the contest. Option 2. Follow @gatorgames and @johnnfour on Twitter and send us […]

You can win a copy of the new hardcover Underdark book for D&D 4E thanks to Gator Games. How to enter Entering is easy and you have two options: Option 1. Leave a comment below telling us you’d like to enter the contest. Option 2. Follow @gatorgames or @johnnfour on Twitter and send us a […]

By D.L. Campbell One of the first posts I ever read at Campaign Mastery was the amazing 50 Barbarian Hooks. I instantly thought, ‘I hope there will be more of those!’ followed by ‘I wanna try that!’ Another list has joined the party (though I’m still greedy for more – hint, hint everybody) and I […]

When mapping, I tend to focus on the corridors, rooms, streets, caverns, and buildings. However, every map has more than just these areas; each has three zones in your design control. Next map you build, think of these zones and how you can change things up to be fun and interesting for your gaming. This […]